Abstract: Urban biodiversity has been seriously threatened by rapid urbanization. Distribution hotspots of important species in cities should be identified firstly to effectively protect urban biodiversity. We explored the degradation mechanism of urban protected wildlife in Shenzhen, a densely populated megacity. We used maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) to identify the distribution hotspots of protected wildlife, and analyzed the relationships between wildlife distribution and environmental factors by Jackknife test and response curves created by single corresponding variables. The distribution hotspots were overlaid with the protected area using ArcGIS to analyze the effectiveness of current biodiversity conservation measures. Based on all the analyses, we put forward the protection measures of urban protected wildlife. The results showed that the distribution hotspots accounted for 12.43% of total land area, mainly on the hilltop far from the built-up area, coincided with the native habitats of different wildlife, and being strongly overlapped with protected area. The results of Jackknife test showed that the dominant factors affecting wildlife distribution are land cover type, distance to city, vegetation type, maximum temperature of the warmest month, and diurnal difference of mean temperature. We suggest that urban biodiversity could be protected by maintaining the habitats of wildlife hotspots, restoring the habitats of potential distribution area, and constructing multi-level ecological space management system.

Key words: urban biodiversity, wild plants and animals, maximum entropy model (MaxEnt).